The last few weeks there's been a considerable amount of chatter on the web about whether or not a news website, blog, or some hybrid thereof, needs comments. Since we are working on the next version of OSNews, which means I've been thinking about things like this a lot, I figured I'd pen down my thoughts on comments.

You have always known what my beef with OSnews comments is: the +/- peer moderation.
Minus votes aren't fair in many cases, they just mean: I don't like/I don't agree, not "you are breaking a rule"

I have noticed that more often than not, any sort of negative remarks made about *nix or FOSS in general get modded down by overzealous fanboys, so I'd be in favor of getting rid of the moderation system. If need be, have a method in place to report posts as spam or obvious trolling, but not the generic '-1' we have going right now.

BTW: Thom, glad you are dialing back the patent stuff - I guess all that bitching did some good afterall

I've been a reader for some years now and never bothered to sign up. Now however, that just changed.

Dial down the patent news? but I like the patent news!
Of course, I'd rather have a world where copyright and patents didn't interfere so much in the development och software in general but now that we live in said world, I want to know whats going on.